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Appy Halloween – 24 Educational Apps for Howliday Fun!

Here are 24 educational Halloween apps with links so that you can download them. They were all FREE when I downloaded them – which is why you should follow my blog. 🙂

Several of them are FREE again. Enjoy and Happy Halloween!!

FREE for a limited time – Grandmas Loves Bugs, another adorable educational app for preschoolers by Fairlady Media. Kids join dancing grandma in her garden to learn all about bugs. The app features 10 educational games – all thematically linked. Kids will love helping grandma in her garden and they will be learning math & reading as they do. The app also features short videos of real bugs in action. Some of the educational content in the games include: colors, observation (spot the difference), numbers (recognition & counting), letters (upper & lower case), memory, problem solving, and vocabulary. This app is nicely done for little ones – educational content covered in a fun way with a dancing Grandma to celebrate a job well-done!

WARNING! Do no install this version of EyePaint Monsters on iOS 8.x devices! The developers are working to fix a problem that produces a black camera signal.

Eye Paint Monsters is FREE again for a limited time for iPhone/iPad. This educational apps lets your child paint illustrations by Japanese artist, Mitsue Haya, in a very unique way. Kids”paint” using their cameras to capture the colors, textures, patterns around them. To begin, a child chooses one of the 10 included illustrations. He/she taps to select the area to be filled in and the creativity begins! Work can be saved to the photo library for sharing or printing. Easy, fun, and very creative!!

Millie’s Book of Tricks and Treats is currently $.99. The Millie books feature a very cute, lovable dog and kids absolutely LOVE them! If you own some of Millie’s other books: Meet Millie and Millie and the Lost Key, you will want to download this one too. This book presents a series of silly tricks & treats featuring Millie – nothing scary for little ones. Every time you read it, the randomly generated video clips change so the book is always different.There is also a scratch-off picture & hidden sticker on every page. Love this series!

FREE – Toca Kitchen Monsters, another fun educational app from Toca Boca. Kids take to the kitchen to cook for two lovable monsters. In the frig they will find eight different foods that they can slice, blend, boil, fry, or microwave. They can also add seasoning to the food but they need to be careful not to add too much. Once the food is prepared they plate it up, serve it to the monster and wait for a reaction. Kids will learn which foods each monster prefers – fun creative play!!

Teachers – use this app to inspire creative writing. Write stories or poems about each monster. It would also be fun to compare and contrast the food preferences of the monsters on a graphic organizer. Fun learning activities for Halloween!

FREE for a limited time – Monster Coloring Book. Kids can paint 175 different monsters with no clean-up necessary! As they paint, they listen to classical music by Rachmaninov, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Kids can paint with their fingers or use the “touch and fill” option. Enhancements include: stickers to accessorize the monsters and patterns to make the monsters unique. Once kids have designed their monster images, they can save them to their gallery. There they can turn their monster into a puzzle for use with Monster Puzzles – available in the App Store for $1.99. Creations can also be shared via email or they can be printed. This educational coloring app is well-designed!

Teachers – use this app to inspire creative writing! Kids could create their own monsters for a variety of language arts activities – a lesson on adjectives followed by descriptive paragraphs, conversation between two monsters, compare & contrast two monsters using Venn diagrams, creative stories, etc.

Carve-a-Pumpkin from Parents Magazine is FREE for the iPhone/iPad. Kids first choose one of five pumpkins (orange, white, orange with green, black or orange & bumpy). They can “cut” it by hand or use premade eyes, noses, mouths, and faces. Instead of cutting the pumpkins, kids can choose to decorate them with stickers. In either mode, kids can manipulate the size and orientation of the objects that they add. There is an undo and redo button to change things easily. Once the pumpkins is complete, kids choose a background. The final project can be shared on Facebook. Twitter, & emailed, or saved as a photo. This app would be fun for kids to use as a planning tool for real pumpkin carving.

Currently $1.99 – Hiding Monsters is an interactive book for kids 2+ for the iPhone/iPad. Kids play hide and seek with a group of friendly monsters in this interactive e-book. Narrated by Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants) and illustrated by Melanie McCall, this book is adorable! Your child will love reading through the story and finding where the monsters are hidden. And the best part is that the hiding places change every time you read the story. Really cute!!

Currently $2.99 – Monster’s Socks is a darling interactive tale about a little monster who goes in search of his lost socks. Kids join Monster on his journey and help him cross streams, sail across the sea, and blast into outer space to find the lost socks. The story advances in a unique way – as Monster travels page by page through the book, he stops on the yellow dots and the text appears. The animation and interactivity are done in a meaningful way that enhances the story. This educational app is a great example of what an interactive book should be – don’t miss it!!

Giggle Ghosts, a counting app for toddlers currently $.99. The giggle ghosts are very cute – kids will love to hear them laugh. Kids help twenty ghosts get the party by bouncing them across rooftops. In the first level the sky is clear and they have to bounce five ghosts. The app counts to five and shows the written numbers. The second level is the same but there are leaves blowing in the sky. In the third level there are clouds in the sky and in the fourth level it is raining – both provide additional practice counting from one to five. At the end, all twenty ghosts at the party are counted. This educational app is great for little ones at Halloween – nothing scary, just fun & friendly ghosts going to a party 🙂

Currently $.99 – Monsters: Videos, Games, Photos, Books & Interactive Activities for Kids by Playrific. This digital activity pack features monster-themed books, songs, and activities for kids – just in time for Halloween! Read Where the Wild Things Are, sing songs with the Happy Monster Band, make monster cupcakes, watch monster cartoons. All content has been prescreened by the developer.

Math vs Zombies is currently full price – $4.99. Kids become highly trained scientists with the mission of saving the world from zombies. Using their math skills, they transform the zombies back into humans. The app has four worlds – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Each world has 7 levels which can be set to easy, medium, or hard – making this app suitable for multiple grade levels. Kids will love the “spooky” music, howling wind, and “scary” zombies. The combination turns math practice into a Halloween treat!

The memory game section of the Monsters Band app for the iPhone/iPad is currently FREE. Kids can choose their level of difficulty – 12, 20, or 30 cards to match. Points are awarded based on what level is being played. There are also time bonuses. Kids may register to build points and earn stickers but it is not necessary to do so in order to play. Very cute card memory game – love the silly monsters! Also available as in-app purchases are 3 levels of jigsaw puzzles and 3 levels of quizzes.

FREE for a limited time – My Monster Mayhem, an interactive e-book for the iPhone/iPad which normally sells for $4.99. It is the story of a little girl and all of the monsters in her house (imagination) that prevent her from doing what her mother asks her to do – turn off lights, not waste dental floss, etc. What her mother doesn’t seem to understand is that she is really a hero!

The storyline is cute and there are animations/interactivity found on almost every page – kids pop bubbles from the bathtub, play tug of war with the Broncus Dentus, etc. Kids also collect hidden monsters on almost every page to unlock puzzles at the end of the story. The “existence” of the monsters is left open for discussion/interpretation – perfect for kids that are a bit older. Thanks for another great story, Digital Leaf!

My Beastly ABCs (featured in USA Today’s Top 10 iPad Apps for Kids) is currently $2.99. Kids join a young boy (who is reluctant to get out of bed) on a magical adventure through a not-so-ordinary day. Told in rhyme, the story recounts the boy’s day as he encounters 26 friendly monsters (one for each letter of the alphabet) from all over the world. Kids join in this interactive tale as they play hide & seek with a Boogey Monster, learn how to floss from a Vampire, uproot a Mandrake family, and much more. The app is narrated by Jim Dale with whimsical background music & great sound effects. It has 3 play modes: with narration, without narration, or auto-play. Everything about this educational app is top quality – beautifully illustrated with the perfect amount of animation & interactivity. There is also an index that gives kids monster facts & descriptions. Kids can read and learn about each of the beasts’ unique characteristics and place of origin. Lots of fun!!

A StoryBots Halloween is currently FREE! Cast up to 5 members of your family in this cute & catchy animated Starring You® Video. It’s easy to cast your family members as a vampire, a ghost, a werewolf, a mummy, or Frankenstein’s monster. Just take or upload a photo, position the face, then name your character. In no time you and your kids will be dancing with the StoryBots like the “Boogie” Man! If you’d like, you may share your final creation via email, Facebook or Twitter. VERY cute and fun!

FREE again – Scrap It: Halloween HD for the iPad. You (or your child) can add a Halloween touch to your photos with this app. First take a photo or use an existing one. Using the photo editor, you can crop it and/or add an effect (about 40 filters available). Then its time to get creative – add stickers, change the papers & tiles, add letters & numbers/ribbons/word art, and add & manipulate text using the text editor. Items can be resized, shadowed, sent to the back, sent to the front, etc. Creations are saved in My Scrap Pages. They can also be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, via email. They can be saved to your camera roll or printed. I think kids would love decorating pictures of themselves, their family & friends, and the family pet. 🙂 You could also create an electronic postcard or invitation with this app. Lots of possibilities!!

Dibu’s Monster Maker Lite is FREE for the iPhone/iPad. Dibu is a little boy who loves monsters so he created a machine to build them – I think this is how Dr. Frankenstein got started 🙂 The Monster Maker has hundreds of combinations of monsters waiting to be made. The lite version has 2 bodies to choose for the base.Then kids add hair, eyes, noses, mouths, hats & horns, tops, bottoms, and shoes. There is also a random monster generator which creates a monster with one tap. Finished monsters can be named then saved, printed, made into a puzzle, or emailed. This app also has a child lock that hides all promotional buttons and disables printing & emailing. And… there is a “parents only” button which gives written instructions for access to the app store. The developer does not want young children to end up there accidentally – how refreshing!

This app would be great to use with elementary aged kids. They could create a monster then write a descriptive paragraph about it. They could create two monsters and do a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the monsters. Lots of possibilities!

Mask Jumbled Animals is a fun educational game for kids. It turns their faces into animal faces! Kids look into the app’s mirror and animal parts will appear on their faces. They tap to match the ears, nose, chin, and hair in order to complete 1 of 20 different animal masks. When the mask is complete, kids catch strawberries in their mouths to unlock a new mask. The mask puzzles are really cute for preschoolers who will be delighted to be an elephant, a lion, a panda, etc. But… the best part of this app is the ability to take pictures of kids in their masks which makes this app a fabulous resource for creative writing! Pull those pictures into a story writing app and off you go.

Tilly Witch by Don Freeman (author of Corduroy) is Currently $1.99. The story is a Halloween classic about a witch who forgets how to be mean! Check out this great story from a well-known author of children’s books.

Like other titles from Auryn Apps, this story can be personalized by having your child narrate it – a super option for kids who are learning to become more fluent readers.

The Scariest Halloween Story Ever is currently $1.99. Kids follow Candy Corn Man on an interactive Halloween adventure. I taught third grade for MANY years and I think this book would be enjoyed by most kids 8+. Younger students may be a bit scared by the bugs, bats and/or the monster eyeballs (which turn out to only be meatballs) so make sure you know your audience. It’s a cute story. 🙂

Jigsaw Puzzle with Monsters is currently $2.99. It includes 12 “scary” monster puzzles for kids 4+. To begin, kids click on one of the 12 monsters shown on the desktop. The puzzle pieces disperse and kids are supposed to drag each piece to its proper place. When the puzzle is completed, the monster makes a sound. Very cute !